The Animals
House of the Rising Sun chords
House of the Rising Sun by The Animals is an intermediate song in Am, played with no capo. The whole sheet is 6 chords (Am, C, D, F, E, Dm) across 3 sections: Intro → Verse → Coda. 5 of the 6 shapes are open chords. Shapes that use a barre: F.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: D → F, 3 times.
- Difficulty
- Intermediatebarre shape F
- Key
- Amwith no capo
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 65 open, 1 with a barre
- Sections
- 3each with its own progression
Chords in House of the Rising Sun
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar in this practice sheet. Follow the time signature shown beside each section; dots mark the remaining counts in the bar. Tap a bar to hear its chord, or loop the section to practise the changes.
Chord accompaniment only. Follow the section notes for this arrangement’s timing. Songs whose words are public domain →
Intro6/8 · ♩=90
Verse6/8 · ♩=90
Coda6/8 · ♩=90
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play House of the Rising Sun
One progression, six chords, and a rolling arpeggio pattern that has launched a million first fingerpicking attempts. The loop is Am, C, D and F, then Am, E and Am and E again, played in a slow six-eight feel. Because it never changes, the song is a perfect study in two things at once: keeping the picking hand independent, and making the F chord arrive without a pause in the pattern. Learn the shape changes first with plain strums, then add the arpeggio.
For the 6/8 accompaniment, start with the bass of each chord and roll gently through the upper strings. Am to C can keep the B string at fret 1 and D at fret 2, moving the ring finger. C to D has no shared fretted G-string note: C leaves G open and D frets it at 2. Prepare the triangle rather than holding an imaginary anchor. Use small F x-x-3-2-1-1 if the full barre is tiring.
Practise at 60 BPM with six light pulses per bar and count out loud, because a six-eight song played as a straight four loses all its menace. Loop Am, C, D, F until the F lands on time, then add the Am, E turnaround and finally the coda, where the Am slides to Dm and back. Try the whole thing at half speed with the metronome before you attempt the record’s tempo.
How to practise House of the Rising Sun
Four steps computed from this sheet: the order the shapes are easiest to learn in, the changes that really occur in the progressions above, where each chord turns up, and the tempo ladder up to the speed marked here.
Learn the shapes easiest first
Am (x-0-2-2-1-0, beginner) → C (x-3-2-0-1-0, beginner) → D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → E (0-2-2-1-0-0, beginner) → Dm (x-x-0-2-3-1, beginner) → F (1-3-3-2-1-1, intermediate, needs a barre)
5 of the 6 shapes are open chords, so start there and leave F until the others change cleanly.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
Am → C4×Am → E4×C → D3×D → F3×
These counts come from the progressions on this page, so they are the changes you will actually play, not a generic list of pairs to practise.
Know where each chord turns up
- Amevery section
- CIntro, Verse
- DIntro, Verse
- FIntro, Verse
- EIntro, Verse
- DmCoda
Climb the tempo ladder
This sheet does not list a tempo, so pick one where every change is clean and use the metronome to move up in 4 BPM steps.
Practise each section's chord changes slowly, then play the sheet through at a steady tempo without pausing between sections.
Playing House of the Rising Sun with a capo
This sheet needs no capo. Each card shows what you would finger at that capo position so the song still sounds exactly as written. Useful when the shapes above are awkward, or when you want to sing it higher without learning new chords.
No capoas written
Am C D F E Dm
5 of 6 stay open
Fret 1
Abm B C# E Eb C#m
1 of 6 stay open
Fret 2
Gm Bb C Eb D Cm
2 of 6 stay open
Fret 3
F#m A B D C# Bm
2 of 6 stay open
Fret 4
Fm Ab Bb C# C Bbm
1 of 6 stay open
Fret 5
Em G A C B Am
5 of 6 stay open
Fret 6
Ebm F# Ab B Bb Abm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 7
Dm F G Bb A Gm
3 of 6 stay open
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If House of the Rising Sun clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More intermediate songs to learn after this one: Father and Son, Shallow, The One That Got Away, Treat You Better.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in House of the Rising Sun turns up across all 104 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
125bars of this chord across the songbook
35songs use this shape
Most often followed by F, 23×.
420bars of this chord across the songbook
70songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 115×.
323bars of this chord across the songbook
58songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 52×.
114bars of this chord across the songbook
29songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 38×.
69bars of this chord across the songbook
11songs use this shape
Most often followed by Eadd9, 6×.
23bars of this chord across the songbook
9songs use this shape
Most often followed by F, 5×.